Rosh Hashana and Foregiving

Recently I noticed that my girls are having a hard time "letting go." They will stay angry a little longer than usual and continue to be upset even after all the apologies and talking it through has happened.

With Rosh Hashana just around the corner, I figured this was a perfect time to start a unit on foregiveness and the importance of not holding a grudge.

I will start with some children books that address this topic.

The Association of Jewish Libraries has a value finder. It is a great resource which searches for Jewish books by values/middot.

Here are the search results that came up for forgiveness:

Author Title Anderson, Joel Jonah's Trash, God's Treasure Balsley, Tilda Oh No, Jonah! Brodsky, Beverly Jonah Cohen, Barbara King of the Seventh Grade Gerstein, Mordicai Legend of Jonah and the Two Great Fish, The Greengard, Alison Joseph the Dreamer Hanft, Josh Miracles of the Bible Ioannides, Mara Cohen Shout in the Sunshine, A Jaffe, Nina Way Meat Loves Salt, The Jules, Jacqueline Hardest Word: A Yom Kippur Story, The Kassirer, Sue Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors Koralek, Jenny Coat of Many Colors, The Lasky, Kathryn Broken Song Marzollo, Jean Jonah and the Whale (and the Worm) Penn, Malka Ghosts and Golems: Haunting Tales of the Supernatural Schram, Peninnah Hungry Clothes and Other Jewish Folktales, The Singer, Isaac Bashevis Wicked City, The Waldron, Kathleen Cook Joseph, Master of Dreams Warren, Andrea Surviving Hitler: A Boy In the Nazi Death Camps    On the site, you can click the title and see a short summary and age range

Thoughtful Thursdays: And Baby Makes 5

We are now a family of 5!

I have to say it's not as hard as I anticipated. 

Now let me clarify that statement: it actually is ALOT of work and I'm REALLY tired and the juggling is ENDLESS, but with the right perspective it's manageable.

See my post about re-framing complaining for more information. 

Its been a smoother transition to baby #3 for several reasons:

1. I am not returning to nearly as many hours of work as I was with my other kids

2. My older kids are in camp for a good portion of the day.

and I think the most important reason:

3. I am not resentful of the changes a new baby brings.

I remember with my first child I was resentful that I had to hold and nurse her so much. 

I was angry that I wasn't able to eat a meal  like a civilized human. I often ate cold food with one hand. Or if I had both hands available I worried about spilling food on the little head that peaked out of the baby carrier.

I was frustrated that I couldn't leave my house when I wanted to 

and of course all I wanted to do was SLEEP!

These feelings lessened with my second daughter and now with my son, these feelings although present at times have nearly disappeared.

I still hold and nurse him almost all day

I still eat like a caveman: I just finished eating cold sweet potato  right out of the skin--I practically slurped it out :)

I am still pretty home bound

I still don't sleep

But the difference is I have willingly accepted this new reality. 

The work is hard, but like my mother says, "Be thankful that you can do it!"

Thoughtful Thursdays: Caught In A Lie

Photo Source

I have to admit that I have been guilty of telling a few too many white lies to my kids.This was recently made very apparent to me while struggling to convince my 2 year old to go down for a nap, my older daughter whispered in my ear, "tell her that I'm going to take a nap too".

AAAAHHH!! My 4 year old was now giving me tips on how to lie! 
I took a major pause.
My daughter knows that I lie and is following in my foot steps. Not OK.

As parents we tell many lies:
- "if you don't come with me right now, I'm leaving you here."
-"you were the best dancer in the whole show"
-"if you watch too much TV, your brain will turn to mush"

Unfortunately, our hypocrisy will come back to bite us. How long can we lecture our children on the importance of telling the truth  if we are fibbers ourselves?
Children do not respond well to the "do as I say, not as I do approach", nobody does.

We lie at different times and for different reason. Some are justifiable due to child's age/maturation.

But, I do not want to risk losing my child's trust over my silly lies.
Usually there is a valuable lesson in giving them the real reason why they must come right now, work hard to be a great dancer, and not watch so much TV.

Thoughtful Thursdays: Re-framing Complaining

Let me start this post about quitting to complain with some good old fashion complaining. 

For so many of us reading blogs and scrolling through Facebook and other social media sites leads us down the road of gawking at other people's beautiful self portraits, beautiful children, beautiful vacations, beautiful homes, etc... It makes it so easy for us to feel anything but  "less than". When I blog I post pictures of my crafts, my projects, my  ideas, etc so others can be inspired as I have been from other bloggers. What I don't post are the tantrums, the messes, the fighting, the crying (mine and the childrens') that occurs during or between these events.  I have thought about taking pictures of our craziness and sharing it with you all, but it doesn't feel right to expose my family at our most vulnerable times to the mass public. 

But in case anyone who reads my blog has been disillusioned about our life, here is a little glimpse into what really goes on "behind the scenes". 

This morning, I was awakened by the sounds of children giggling and playing so beautifully in their bedroom. This sounded so wonderful, I thought "Yes! I can lie in bed a few more minutes". Their giggling soon turned into screaming and crying when my 2 year old dropped a chair on her sister who was lying on the ground and gave her a busted lip and bleeding gums. Said child then refused ice or any form of help and just continued to scream. 

On to  morning bath time (because I was too tired to bathe them the night before)- one child gets out of bath first causing other child to cry for 15 minutes that she wanted to get out of bath first.

All the while, I am trying to get them dressed, fed, and put in one of the many loads of laundry because "someone" crawled into my bed in the middle of night and peed all over my sheets.

Now it's time to leave for first day of camp, child runs around house like a wild turkey refusing to use the potty and put on shoes.

Flash forward to after camp when one child bites another child because "she pushed a button on my iPAD" or when little sister decided she wanted to throw all the blueberries on the floor and when mommy said NO,  she had a hysterical tantrum yelling that she REALLY NEEDS to throw all the blueberries on the floor and STEP ON THEM!

I imagine many of you have had similar crazy in your homes as well. If not, please write a book and I will read it!!!

Ok, so now the question is how do we manage to stay sane and the parents we always imagined we would be amidst all this crazy. So I don't have THE answer, but I do have a suggestion:

This cheesy quote above pretty much sums up what I have been thinking about lately and has helped me get through alot of these tough moments.

I can have the same amount of crazy happen on two different days and come out of one day feeling like a total failure as a parent and on the other day feeling so proud for how I handled things. When I analyze what factors affected my reactions to each day, it all came down  to perspective.

The thought process on the miserable days would go something like this:

1. My house is a mess!!
2. I can't get any quiet time!!
3. Why are there so many dishes in the sink?!
4. My children are nuts!!

Contrast to the thought process on my better days:

1. I am lucky to even have a home full of stuff and can afford to own all these luxuries!!
2. My children can be loud because they are healthy!!
3. There are dishes because we have the means to eat 3+ meals a day!!
4. I have children!!

I still have more miserable days than I would like to admit, but re-framing has been really helpful in decreasing the frequency and intensity of the bad days. 

If we can re-frame some of the negative thoughts that run through our minds and make us so angry, maybe we can see that many of the things we complain about are actually privileges. 

Thoughtful Thursdays: Computers as Teachers??

Thoughtful Thursdays will consist of my musings and ramblings about life, kids, education, etc. I had all these  ideas running threw my head to share with you today, but being that I am 37 weeks pregnant and it is after midnight and I just finished prepping for Shabbat meals, I will take the easy way out. 

I will share with you someone else's thoughts on children and education, Sugata Mitra. Sugata Mitra is  is best known for his "Hole in the Wall" experiment, and widely cited in works on literacy and education.  He is also the winner of the TED Prize in 2013.

Photo SourceHere is his interesting piece on how the educational system as we know it today is completely outdated in our fast paced technological era: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jun/15/schools-teaching-curriculum-education-google

Here is a link to his TED video explaining his Hole in the Wall Project. He demonstrated that groups of children, irrespective of who or where they are, could be taught by computers very easily without any formal training.

 I would love to know your thoughts.

Is our to be obsolete in our future?